The real action on election nights, if you’re obsessive enough that you can’t just grab a beer and chill while the votes come in, is down at the county level. If you know the electoral make up by county and the results in recent elections, you can get a pretty good sense of what’s going on, even if the topline results are still ambiguous. You see who’s underperforming or overperforming in particular areas. One of the top guys I know to follow for this kind of analysis on Twitter is Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. If you want these kinds of breakdowns in real time, here’s his feed.
Wasserman’s take as of just after 7:30 seems to be that Trump probably wins Virginia but Rubio is making a real race of it, performing well in key areas. It’s likely much closer than the current ten point spread would suggest. Because the votes in so far are from western part of the state. Rubes’ votes are going to come from NOVA, as we discussed here.
To my eye, it looks like Rubio on track to finish within 5% of Trump in VA. But, could be even closer. Still early, we’ll see.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 2, 2016
